Taking good care of your car tyres is essential if you want to stay safe when you're behind the wheel. Here are two specific types of tyre maintenance which could significantly reduce your risk of being involved in a road accident. 

Checking your tyre treads on a regular basis

Tyre treads are designed to help your vehicle retain a strong grip on the road. The deeper the tyre treads, the less likely it is that you will lose control of your car when driving on a wet or excessively smooth road surface.

The depth of your car's tyre treads will decrease over time. As this happens, you may notice a difference in your vehicle's traction levels. For example, you might find that it starts to take you an unusually long time to bring your car to a complete stop after you press down on the brake pedal or that your tyres seem to slide slightly when you drive during bouts of heavy rain.

These changes could easily lead to you being involved in an accident. For instance, if you are approaching a busy roundabout and you need to quickly brake, but your tyres' tread depths are extremely low, your car could end up sliding towards and subsequently colliding with another vehicle that is already on the roundabout.

Likewise, if you are approaching a red traffic light but find that your car continues to move forward even after you hit the brakes, you could end up hitting and badly injuring any pedestrians who happen to be crossing the road at the traffic lights.

As such, it is extremely important to keep a close eye on the condition of your tyre treads. In practical terms, this means that you should check their depths at least once every two weeks (and replace them if the treads are lower than the legal limit) and regularly remove any debris (such as gravel or bits of rubbish) that may have gotten trapped in them.

Check your tyre's pressure levels on a weekly basis

If you drive your car almost every day, you should check the pressure levels of its tyres at least once every week.

The reason for this is as follows; tyres which have too much or too little air inside them are far more prone to blowouts than tyres which are inflated to the correct levels.

A sudden tyre blowout during a car journey could put both you and any nearby road users at risk of serious injury, as a blowout can make it virtually impossible for you to maintain control of your car.

If this happens, you may find that your vehicle's steering wheel moves forcefully towards the affected side of the car. If you are on a busy motorway when this occurs, you could end up accidentally swerving into another car and causing a major pile-up.

Given this, it is important never to miss a tyre pressure check-up. You can buy an expensive pressure gauge and perform this task yourself or alternatively, you can pop into your local mechanic and have them do it for you.